The process and science of information distribution is heavily relied upon by many industries including the advertising industry. Advertisers seek to distribute their advertisements and information to as many people as possible that may be interested in their product. This typically involves analyzing user profile information to determine whether the benefit of sending the advertisement to users would outweigh the costs. In some instances, advertisements are specifically geared toward one demographic and thus, may be ineffective for another demographic. As such, advertisers must insure that costs are not incurred to advertise with those demographics that are not relevant to a particular advertisement. Electronic advertising has also developed into a key component of many marketing campaigns, because electronic advertising can often be low cost and easily distributed to numerous users at once.
In addition, creative electronic advertising methods such as the use of advertisement widgets have allowed advertisers and target users to strike a balance in the control of advertisement distribution. Advertisement widgets are applications that may be downloaded to a user's computing device such as a mobile phone and that display a variety of information including advertisements. Widgets include graphical elements that are generally displayed in a particular area of a device's user interface. Widgets may further be associated with a content server and receive display content directly from the server based on various factors including user preferences and interests. For example, YAHOO!® provides a widget engine that allows a user to run widgets that may perform a multitude of actions and functions.
Even with new developments in advertising technology like the use of widgets, advertisers may often find it difficult to target the most relevant user groups and/or to identify those users who would be receptive to advertisements. Advertisers have not been able to capitalize on information about a particular user inferred from user interactions and behaviors. For example, a user may frequently download and view advertisement widgets relating to consumer electronics. In particular, the user may have a significant collection of widgets relating to electronics. Based on this observation, an advertiser of televisions would most likely want to direct an advertisement to that user. However, the advertiser is often unaware of such behavior, patterns and widget collection information. In addition, many users are often hesitant to sign up for advertisements or use advertisement widgets because they assume their private information (e.g., e-mail address, home telephone number) will be distributed to other advertisers. Further, even when a user is interested in an advertised product, they are often guarded about signing up for additional information for fear of compromising their privacy.
For the foregoing reasons, a system and method of enhancing electronic advertising and information distribution is needed.